Atheism or Theism: The Perspective of Said Nursi, Wipf & Stocks
By Hakan Gok
2018
9781532646799

The existence of God has been long debated in philosophical circles. Mankind doesn’t seem to have settled the question yet. Although scientific circles almost all agree on the assumption that the universe is not eternal and has a beginning, there seems to be no clear scientific explanation of the Big Bang. What was there before it? How did it happen? Is there a divine force behind it? Although theories such as the expansion of the universe are commonly agreed upon, there is still a major gap between the views on how life as we see it came into its current form.

Philosophers have gathered around two philosophical positions to explain the universe and human existence. Those who argue that the universe began with the Big Bang and life has come into existence as a result of some random events without any divine intervention are considered to be atheists. Others, who argue that the universe is the product of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving deity, are called theists. Arguably almost all thinking human beings are inclined towards one of these two positions, although the degrees and the specific philosophical positions are varied. While atheism had never been a trend almost until the seventeenth century, the theistic view, which was the mainstream thought, did not really concern itself much to bring evidence for the existence of God. Although there has been a very dynamic discussion on this topic in the last three centuries, one tends to accept belief in the existence of God as a matter of personal conviction rather than a result of empirical evidence.

Hakan Gok’s recent book is another fresh contribution to this everlasting debate. Gok explains the scene to the layman in his fairly extended introduction. It is, in a way, an executive summary of what has been said since the time of the Ancient Greeks. The book gives a special emphasis on the kalam version of the argument for the existence of God, in particular the views of Al Kindi, Al Farabi, Ibn Sina, Al Ghazzali, and Ibn Rushd. Although the kalam arguments sound fairly similar to that of the Western tradition, the reader can feel the flavor of Islamization of these common arguments. It is clear in Gok’s writings that there is a close correlation between Western and Islamic ways of arguing in favor of theism. The book also shows how Muslim philosophers, particularly the ones mentioned above, were influenced by the Ancient Greek tradition.

What is unique in Gok’s book is the fact that it examines Said Nursi’s approach to atheism and theism, as Nursi extensively did in the Risale-i Nur (The Epistles of Light). Gok tries to demonstrate that, like many of his predecessors, Nursi employed main philosophical arguments to prove that there is God and the universe is not the product of chance. The teleological argument, or the argument from design, which is the offshoot of the cosmological argument, is Nursi’s main proof to demonstrate the existence of God. Gok breaks down Nursi’s design argument and scrutinizes it thoroughly. Arguments from religious experience and from revelation appear in two different chapters in Gok’s book. The book seems to be at pains to demonstrate how Nursi gives a twist to these two arguments by focusing intensely on Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the Quran.

Gok’s book doesn’t only focus on proving that these two arguments make a compelling argument for believing in God, but also studies how Nursi answers the skeptical questions posed over time by many thinkers. It feels more like a defense of Nursi’s position than a systematic presentation of them as they appear in William Lane Craig and the like.

The moral argument is another Nursian way of proving the existence of God, as Gok’s book shows. Human beings are the best judges of any given situation. If all the philosophical arguments fail to convince them, their primordial conscience (wijdan) can lead them into believing in a creator-maintainer God. This, Gok claims, is what makes Nursi’s Risale-i Nur unique among many pieces written on the subject.

Gok’s book puts all the main theistic arguments, kalam arguments, and the atheist’s arguments into the same frame. Readers can clearly see all three positions and where Nursi sits on this spectrum. Gok does not only look at the historic arguments, but also analyzes recent ones. Specifically, he compares Nursi’s views in the Risale-i Nur with Richard Dawkins’s views in The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’s in God Is Not Great, and Daniel C Dennetts’s assessments in Consciousness Explained: Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell. In a well-balanced and fairly objective way, Gok puts the arguments against each other and encourages the reader to form their own judgement.

Atheism and theism are two colossal schools of thought. One should not expect Gok to settle all the scores in 270 pages. His work is easy to read and easy to understand; it merely rekindles one’s interest in independently reading and scrutinizing these thoughts while also making the subject more digestible for those who have an interest in them. Gok sums up Nursi’s position in the Risale-i Nur with a degree of critical analysis.

Each of the Nursian arguments certainly deserve further scrutiny. Yet Gok works to avoid bogging readers down with too many specific philosophical details. Among many books which have been published on the subject, Gok’s makes the subject more enjoyable and digestible for the general readership. It is a fresh contribution to the literature written on Said Nursi’s Risale-i Nur and the subject of theism and atheism.

Some of the incidents we are experiencing today might seem as if they have no precedent – this is both true and false; yes, no precedents on the scale we see today; and no, for violence is something we human beings have always been prone to. Thus, peacebuilding is not possible via revisions in educational policies alone; it is to a no lesser degree relevant to human character, virtue, and moral development. And these are some of the discussions you will find in our coverage in this issue.

The lead article focuses on value transmission in education of the young and how it is so critical for a nation to maintain its existence. Johnston McMaster discusses pluralist democracy and global citizenship as two main goals which education should be geared towards. Michael A. Samuel shares his observation of Turkish teachers inspired from Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet philosophy who migrated to South Africa with a sense of “responsibility to guide the world to a better realization of its potential fullness of being; towards a greater goal of good.” Zekeriya Ozsoy warns teachers that an imbalanced conduct of reward might shift the motivation of some students to material prizes and cause them lose their intrinsic capacity to strive and achieve.

Two special contributions from Nigeria give us hope that sound-thinking leaders and scholars might enable this African star to be rescued from the current violence based on religious and ethnic differences.

According to a recent report by the UN, factors like climate change and high demand for energy are the main reasons for switching to alternative sources, among which biogas is an essential one. The same report also indicates that increasingly higher shares of budgets are spent on biogas, solar and wind energy research.

What is Biogas?

Biogas is a mixture that is produced by microorganisms during the decomposition of vegetable and animal wastes in an oxygen-free environment. It consists of methane (60–70%), carbon dioxide (30–40%) and hydrogen-sulfide (0–2%). For its production, plant seeds that are rich in oil (e.g. sunflower), vegetables rich in carbohydrates (e.g. potato, wheat, corn, beet), fiber-rich plants (e.g. flax), other plant and tree remains (e.g. branches, hay, roots, bark), and animal remains can be utilized as raw material. Municipal and industrial waste can also be utilized on the condition that they are purified from inorganic materials like plastic and glass.

Biogas is an environmentally friendly energy source that is easy to produce almost anywhere. Biogas production capacity is directly proportional to the agricultural level of a country. Its ease of production and relatively higher efficiency compared to other renewable energy sources make it particularly important for countries which are not self-sufficient in energy production.

Biogas production in reactors

Biogas is produced by two main methods. In one case, the amount of biogas that can be extracted from the available organic waste is calculated. Then reactor tanks are designed according to the rate of production. In the other case, the energy requirement of a certain system (in terms of biogas energy) is calculated first, and then the reactors are built accordingly. The main concern in both designs is of course achieving the maximum efficiency and ease with minimum cost.

We can list the parameters in the design of a reactor tank as follows:

– Type and amount of organic material

– Type and amount of raw material

– Meeting the heat requirement of the chemical process

– Mixing various materials in appropriate proportions

Currently, reactors that are fed with raw materials on a daily basis are widely used in rural areas. This type of reactor is known as a continuous reactor. In cases where daily feeding is not possible, semi-continuous reactors are used instead. In this second type, re-feeding of the reactor is not necessary till the end of the first production cycle, but at the end of each cycle, the reactors have to be emptied and cleaned for the next cycle.

Keeping the temperature of the medium at the correct level is crucial. Solar energy can be used to manage this. It can help heat the liquid mixture up to the desired temperature and prevent the heat loss in certain designs by providing the green-house effect.

Implementing in daily use

How to implement biogas as an alternative source of energy in real life is surely an important subject. Currently, energy production from biogas is carried out either by direct burning or enriching and converting it into other forms of fuel to be used in industry.

One may wonder how good biogas really is compared to current energy sources. In terms of biogas production capacity, 440 lbs of food waste is equivalent to the daily manure production from 5 cows. From this much food waste or manure, 88 ft of biogas can be obtained. In terms of energy, this is equivalent to 9 lbs of wood, or 3 lbs of charcoal or 0.16 gallons of coal oil, 1.5 lbs of gasoline and finally 56.50 ft of natural gas. What can we really do with this much energy? Here is a small list of things we can do:

– cook 3 meals a day for a normal size family for 3 days

– run a 2-horsepower engine for an hour

– keep a 60–100 Watt lamp on for six hours, which is approximately 1.25kWh electrical energy

– heat two bedrooms daily

Humanitarian issues

Although when the western developed countries are considered, biogas is an excellent way of making use of waste food and other organic remains, it still calls for global thinking. In western countries, cutting food waste and turning it into useable energy is an advantage of biogas. Whether that energy is really needed is another issue to think about. People need to evaluate honestly how much energy they really need; they must consider the lights that are left on for no purpose, the heating and cooling systems that are over-used for extreme comfort, the excess of food they leave on plates and the pots of food dumped in the trash… Besides, in much of the rest of the world, there is malnutrition and a shortage of food. So, a straightforward question is, “Is it fair to consume edibles to make energy that we do not necessarily need, while there are people suffering from hunger?”

Biogas clearly holds promise to resolve both the energy problem and the environmental crisis of our modern days. However, will it ever be possible to find resources that can satisfy the consumption needs of a humanity that lacks virtues such as contentment and the desire to share?

Bekir Mugayitoğlu is an environmental engineer. He lives in West Virginia, USA.

International companies around the world have used most of the child labor for years. For example, one famous worldwide shoe company in the United States employs five thousand people in the United States and employs ninety five thousand people in Far Eastern Asian countries. Therefore, most of the production by this company has been made in the factories in Far East Asia. The company, however, has been using children as work power, while paying them only $1.5 per month. Just this example shows how difficult the working children’s situation is in the world, and makes people shudder. Although the situation is very serious, there have not been important efforts to protect children from working in unsuitable places. While we see children labor in developed countries, the situation is even worse in developing countries.

THESE CHILDREN BELONG TO US

Children have been being worked at places that need less technology. In industries, many heavy jobs require cheap labor; therefore, children are the best workers for this kind of jobs. There are many reasons why even small aged group children have been pushed to work at unsuitable workplaces. Over population, poverty, migration from rural to urban areas, the education level of the parents, etc. are the main causes for working children. Especially in developing countries, when families migrate to cities, most of the time they live at a ghetto without a healthy environment and well-paying job. Therefore, every member of the family is a potential worker to bring food and money to the home. Many times, children are the most suitable workers for this kind of situation because parents do not have qualified work eligibility; therefore, it is hard for these parents to earn good money. Some cultural misconceptions also put children in work places. For example, in some cultures some families think their children should he taught to get ready for future life. This thinking sometimes force children to work at small ages to see how difficult life is. While child labor is a part of the daily life in third world countries, the problem has not been solved in developed countries either. Because children are considered the free work power, they are the only source of money for poor families. Even today, child labor problems are still a big problem in Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and some other countries. The income anomalies, poverty, high unemployment rate, low school finishing rate, etc. are the main reasons why child labor has been used in Turkey, a developing country with high young population rate.

WORKING CHILDREN; PROBLEMATIC CHILDREN

If children at early ages are allowed to work at dangerous places, without good meals, with unsafe health environments, poor education, and neglect, we have to accept that these children will bring big problems to our society. Yet these children have the rights to receive a good education, security, a secure place to work, and the ability to join social activities. They need to be provided with all of their needs. When children stay away from their family’s control, and especially children who work on the street, will automatically be put in some risk from the streets and be vulnerable to exploitation. Any kind of drug uses, sexual abuses, and harassment are the main risks that children may come across in a short time on the streets.

CHILD LABOR AND CHILDREN RIGHTS IN THE WORLD

Though the exact number of children workers in the world is not known, according to the United Nation International Children Fund’s estimation (UNICEF), the number of working children are more than two hundred million. According to International Labor Organization’s report, more than eighteen percent of the 14-18 age group of children are working in developing countries (Latin America, Asia, and Africa). In other words, children laborer is eight percent of the world’s potential 2.4 billions work power.

Today, not only most of the children’s future are in danger, but also their health and life are under threat around the world. It is possible to see working children continuous in history because the labor is cheap, and they are unable to protect their rights; especially industrial capitalists, factories, mining companies exploited children a lot. At that time, a generation was forced to pay the bill of Western Industrialization. Days and Nights from children to elderly people, everybody has worked. The first studies for children’s legal rights and protection started around the 1880s. The first applications to protect children and give them security by government began in 1802 in England. With this law, children were forbidden to work between 9.00 p.a. and 6.00 a.m. during nights. For the first time in 1890, the working children rights were discussed internationally at Berlin Conference in Germany. Children from both sex groups were prohibited to work unless they turned a specific age and finished their primary school education. The first international documents on children rights was signed with the Zurich Children Right Announcement in 1923. In addition, the United Nation Children Rights report was accepted in 1959.

DEVELOPED COUNTRIES ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THE SITUATION

ILO, the main international children organization, was working to prevent child labor with classic methods. That is, the main methods used by them were prohibiting children under a specific age and punished companies that allowed children to work. This classic method started to change in the 1990s. Under the United Nations umbrella role, ILO and some other children organizations began to develop new strategies and projects to protect children. For example, Germany founded the IPEC project. However, there are still some obstacles that need to be solved. Children from developing countries have been used as a study case, which brought some doubts about the success of the project.

Child labor is cheap, yet this is a disadvantage for developed countries. Some developed countries argue that it is not fair to compete with developing countries because they allow working children as cheap work forces while developed countries can not. Therefore, the G-7 (the most developed seven countries in the world), and 24 countries have taken some actions at the ILO and OECD level in order to stop this acting unjustly competition. Here is a typical example from Germany: Germany has been importing carpets and rugs from India for years. German people started protesting these products from India because children produced these carpets and rugs. Finally, India agreed that they would send an official certificate to Germany showing that the products were not made by children.

Some experts think that labor by children is not productive. According to Jean Maurie Derrien, an expert at ILO, children work power is a vicious circle and does not make nations rich, but only causes poverty. The reason is because if children work, the level of education, qualified work power or profession, and the rate of earning will get lower. The lack of healthy food, poor housing and lack of immunization from diseases brings low working capabilities and, thus, poverty. All of these unsuitable working conditions have many impacts on children for the rest of their lives. In order to solve these problems, ILO started a program called IPEC in developing countries, such as Turkey, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, etc. which includes serial conferences, seminars, and other activities. The program is still continuing, therefore, the results are yet to come.